Special meeting to talk Stroudsburg school closure options

Stroudsburg Area School District officials will try to narrow down their options for potential school closures during a specially scheduled meeting Thursday.

CHRISTINA TATU

Stroudsburg Area School District officials will try to narrow down their options for potential school closures during a specially scheduled meeting Thursday.

Last Wednesday, the school board was presented with four possible scenarios which would result in the closure of some of the district's elementary schools.

The presentation was a very preliminary investigation into the possible closures, said Stroudsburg Superintendent John Toleno.

It's now up to the school board to narrow down the possibilities to "one or two options" the administration can further investigate, he said.

As of Wednesday, Toleno did not present any figures on how much the district could save with any of the options.

In order to help determine potential savings, the district will need to get appraisals of the buildings and decide whether to keep or sell them.

During the meeting Wednesday, Toleno suggested district officials sit down with the Monroe County Commissioners or other county agencies to see if those outside agencies have interest in any of the district's buildings.

School board officials said they would be interested in looking at potential closures to go into effect September 2014, Toleno said.

The last time the district investigated closing a building was in 2012 with Ramsey Elementary.

At that time, the school board voted down a motion to hold a public hearing on whether to close the building.

By law, a school district is required to wait at least 90 days from the date of the public hearing before voting whether to close the building.

The law also requires the district to notify teachers who would be laid off as a result of the closure at least 60 days before the start of the new school year.

District officials had estimated closing Ramsey would save only about $250,000.

On Wednesday night, school district Business Manager Don Jennings estimated closing any of the elementary buildings would save between $200,000 to $300,000.

"Because when you move children to another building, the teachers move with them. And when you relocate your teachers, your principals and assistant principals move with them," he said. "Really, the only operational savings you have are building-specific people, like secretaries, custodians or cafeteria monitors."

If district officials retain ownership of the building, they must continue to pay for its upkeep.

That could include costs such as electricity, maintaining the property and playgrounds, pest control and security.

The $250,000 that had been quoted for Ramsey represented the continued savings on operating costs the district would realize year after year. It did not include money the district could receive for selling the building, Jennings said.

Any money received from the sale of the building would be a "one-time shot," and doesn't represent a continued cost savings.

Because the savings estimate for Ramsey is now two years old, the amount could be different now.

Toleno said he determined the scenarios by looking at the district's "open space and how to fill it."

The district needs a total of 46 sections, or at least 46 classrooms, in order to run kindergarten through second grade, Toleno said during Wednesday's presentation.

The number of classrooms available in Morey is 27; the number of rooms available in Ramsey is 10; the number of rooms available in Clearview is 13; the number of rooms available at Arlington is 16, and the number of rooms available in Hamilton is 26.

Officials also need to keep the future in mind to avoid making a short-sighted decision, Toleno said.

According to Toleno, there are housing projects under construction in Stroudsburg Borough.

They include three new, single-family dwellings in south Stroudsburg; an apartment complex consisting of 48 two-bedroom apartments under construction behind Wawa; a complex of eight two-bedroom apartments being constructed on First Street, and a preliminary plan review is before the Stroudsburg Planning Commission for 18 townhomes on Collins Street in South Stroudsburg.

School board members will also need to consider the effect a total redistricting will have on transportation and the amount of time students spend getting to school.

"We need to spend time narrowing down this presentation to one or two scenarios so that I can begin to look at the finite details associated with each move," Toleno said in his presentation.